Atlantis Endgame Part 8

WHILE ROSS AND Eveleen waited, and Linnea Edel slowly trudged up the mountain path, on the northern sh.o.r.e of the peninsula that formed one end of their island-crescent, Gordon Ashe woke up, bleary-eyed and headachy.

He looked around. No sign of the Baldies-of course.

d.a.m.n.

Down in a little gully to his left he saw some goats drinking from a small stream. He swallowed convulsively. The stream appeared to be bubbling up from underground, which meant it was probably sanitary. He had certainly risked worse during his many runs; he did have ma.s.sive antibiotic doses back at the ship, but meantime his canteen was empty, and he had to get some water. He worked his way down the rocky incline. The goats scattered, the older ones scolding him with an insistent "Na-ha-ha-ha!" "Na-ha-ha-ha!"

The water tasted faintly metallic. It had to be rich in minerals, but there was no dangerous flatness as of rotting matter or other pollutants. He drank his fill, and then sat down to think.

He'd followed the Baldies at a respectable distance, not knowing how far their supposed detection might range. But they had not once looked back as they sped in a group northward over the hills. Ashe had followed, using all his years of experience at outdoor trail-craft to stay silent and out of sight but still keep them within his vision. Yet even so, just as the moon rose, he lost them.

He could hardly be blamed. He been edging along a crumbling section of the trail, the Baldies just ahead around a turn, when a sudden quake sent the trail underfoot hurtling down toward the dry creek bed far below.

The next ninety or so nearly vertical feet were like surfing on dirt; Ashe frantically pedaled his feet, keeping himself on top of the swirling dirt and rocks as the ma.s.s slid ever faster downward. He was successful until just a couple of feet from the bottom, when a larger rock banged into the back of his knee and sent him sprawling. The impact knocked the breath out of him; he grayed out for a moment. The agent was dimly aware of more rocks. .h.i.tting him, then silence broken only by random slippages of pebbles.

When he scrambled back to the trail, he hurried forward, limping, finally catching a glimpse of the Baldies far ahead. But only once. He soon was forced to conclude that he'd lost them. The trail was hard and stony there, and he could find no footprints.

By the light of the low-hanging moon he had grimly worked his way from that spot in ever widening circles, but not a trail, or cave, or door did he find. So he'd finally laid himself down on a gra.s.sy little hillock to sleep.

Now that it was daylight, he was determined to do another search, and if he did not find any suspicious anomalies like indications of s.p.a.ceship burn, evidence of vehicle tracks, or flattened vegetation in the case of something air cushioned, he'd be forced to give up and return to the ship empty-handed.

He got to his feet, pulled the stale remains of his flatbread from the leather pouch at his waist, and chewed as he started his search.

IT DID NOT surprise Eveleen that Ross's instincts were right.

With a hiss of muted hydraulics a crack of light appeared, rapidly widening into a doorway. Ross and Eveleen blinked, trying to adjust to the light. She put her hands up to her face, discovered her breathing mask. Panic! With a few more exchanges spelled out on each other's palms, they'd decided to stick to their covers. They hastily adjusted the cloth covering their faces and heads, so only their eyes showed and the breathing masks stayed hidden.

She cast a look Ross's way, and he gave his head a tiny shake.

The doorway darkened. One of the Fur Faces appeared, gesturing for them to come out. Another was in view behind.

They slowly rose to their feet. Eveleen watched Ross look around as though totally mesmerized. His gaze, she saw with a bleak spurt of amus.e.m.e.nt, lingered on how the door retracted into the rock and the mechanism that controlled it.

Out they walked. The two Fur Faces closed in behind them, tall, dressed in shapeless robes, each carrying something short and tubular in a clawed, double-jointed hand. Another Fur Face stepped in front of them, blocking off what had to be some kind of computer console, an egg of shimmering metal and misty bars of light, shapes that trembled in constant motion.

She and Ross were guided into another room, this one light, with another partially blocked off console. The Fur Faces prodded them not ungently back toward the wall and then lined up behind the console.

A Fur Face did something; they could not see what from their angle. The machine hummed, then spoke in a metallic, flat voice: "Who are you, and what seek you on the mountain?" The language was Ancient Greek.

Ross cleared his throat. "We are Timos and Hesti, and we came in search of our missing goat."

One of the Fur Faces spoke softly into what had to be their equivalent of a pin mike. This time the question came out in what sounded very much like Ancient Egyptian.

Eveleen felt a flare of danger. So the Fur Faces did not believe their pose? Would they rip off the breathing masks, then? The virtual overlay in her mask indicated that the chamber was filled with dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfides- natural to volcanoes and also, apparently, to Fur Faces.

They stayed silent, and a moment later, the machine spoke again, in a guttural language that sounded vaguely like Ancient Norse. Then once more, this time in some prehistoric form of Goth or Visigoth.

Eveleen did her best to seem bewildered, though inside she felt a spurt of relief. Even if the Fur Faces did not believe that they were bona fide Kallistans, at least they appeared to believe that she and Ross were from the ancient world.

Her relief was short-lived. The next language to emerge from that machine was Cla.s.sical Latin. And then the machine proceeded through a remarkable, no, an intimidating number of languages, Eastern and Western, right up until modern times. When it spat out the same question in English-Who are you? Why are you here?-and then in German, French, Russian, j.a.panese, and Chinese, Eveleen had time to consider the fact that modern times were not, as they had comfortably surmised, unknown to these aliens.

After that the machine went on to speak in strange amalgams of what might be English and other languages. Eveleen thought that these would be a linguist's joy to hear, but they were so much gibberish to her, familiar yet not.

She'd just finished that thought when the Fur Face halted the stream of questions.

Silence, as the Fur Face fumbled at the console.

Eveleen was distracted by a warning pressure on her hand, which Ross still held. He pinched her little finger, tugging it to the right.

The right?

She looked up, just as the Fur Face's machine said, again in Ancient Greek, "There are two tongues here that make your blood-organ speed its rate of pumping-"

And before it could identify English, Ross drew in a sharp breath. That was the only warning Eveleen had. As Ross launched himself to the left, she whirled to the right, launching a high kick, a snap to the Fur Face's narrow jaw. As it staggered off balance she gave it a knuckle blow to what would be the solar plexus on a human, and the being crumpled soundlessly to the stone floor. She bent, relieved that she had judged right: the Fur Face was still breathing.

Ross's groaned, but then subsided into unconsciousness. Eveleen held her hands up, waiting for the other two to attack, and then stared: they stood, impa.s.sive, their sight focused on the wall where the two Time Agents had been standing-Then it dawned on her. "Holographs?" she whispered.

He nodded, raised a finger to his lips.

Of course. The machine had to be recording whatever was said.

They both sprang to the console, which was of course totally incomprehensible. Ross scanned it and then began pressing pads and lights, and when the machine responded with flickers and streams of glyphs, he pressed more pads and lights, then stepped back and delivered a vicious chopping kick down onto the console. There was a musical jangling from within the egg, and several indicators changed color or went dark. Ross kept at it, obviously hoping to at least confuse things.

Then they moved to the door. Eveleen reached for the control mechanism; the door slid open, and they were in the outer room. No one around.

She chanced a word. "Weapon?" She used Ancient Greek.

Ross shook his head. "Useless." He answered in the same tongue.

He paused long enough to do the same thing to the console out there, and then they ran to what had to be the outer door. Again it slid open almost silently, and the two ran up the smoky stone vent to the surface.

"Let's get out of here," Ross said, and they plunged down the path.

CHAPTER 11.

BY THE TIME Ross and Eveleen reached the harbor, the day was ending. Four rolling quakes and a brief, fierce thunderstorm full of stinging acid rain had slowed them, but at last they arrived just as the boat sailed up and dropped anchor.

Ross looked around and saw Gordon Ashe coming down the hard-packed trail from Akrotiri.

"Looks like we all had the same idea," Gordon greeted Ross.

"I wish we didn't have to stick with radio silence," Ross said.

Gordon gave his head a shake.

Before he could speak, Ross said, "I know; I know. Baldies could listen in, and identify our time-frame as well as where we are. But you didn't know this. The Baldies are not our only problem."

And, as Stavros and Kosta came up to join them, Ross gave a swift report on his and Eveleen's experiences inside the volcano.

The others listened in tense silence.

Ross finished, "... I watched the Fur Faces while the language test was going on and realized that two of them were d.a.m.n still for supposedly live beings. Only two of them reacted. Then I watched those weapons, or what we thought were weapons. No firing stud or trigger or anything made me wonder if they were just pointing a handy piece of tech at us, their equivalent of a camera or something, and letting us provide the imaginary firepower. So when they started to tell us that our heart rates had given us away, I figured it was time for do or die. Signaled to Eveleen, and we jumped them."

Ashe turned Eveleen's way. She obviously interpreted his look before Ross could, and said, "We left them unconscious."

"We also did our best to mess up their computer setup, which looked field-rigged; then we hightailed out."

"Holographs," Ashe said, looking grim. "I didn't think of that. And I thought the trail they were leaving was a little thin."

Everyone looked at him.

Ashe sighed, and said, "Linnea and I spent most of yesterday watching a group of Baldies standing right out in the open, occasionally interrogating people. That is, only a couple of them did; the rest just watched. When they suddenly took off, I followed them. A quake knocked me over a bit of a cliff, and when I was able to follow, they had gotten too far ahead, and I lost them. But I realize now their trail didn't look right, so maybe some of them were holos and I ended up following a bunch of phantoms."

"Moving holos?" Ross asked, scratching his itchy scalp. holos?" Ross asked, scratching his itchy scalp.

Ashe shrugged a shoulder. "Considering the sophisticated level of the rest of their tech, it's entirely possible. A moving projector should be easy enough, if they have a strong enough power source."

Eveleen said soberly, "If you're right, it would indicate that they don't have huge numbers. Not if they have to go to the trouble of falsifying their head count."

"Exactly," Ashe said. "Might even the odds a bit."

"You think they knew you were following them?" asked Eveleen.

"No." He shook his head. "They would have tried to capture me; even with holos they had me outnumbered. I think it was standard procedure to throw off anyone following them. I'll bet they can hide behind holos of the surroundings as well-a perfect way to hide the opening to their base."

"So we can't find it that way."

"Probably not, and anyone poking around that far out from the city would automatically alert them."

"They'll be back," Ross said. "After all, what they're trying to do is flush us out."

"At least, so we guess," Stavros put in. "So far, we ascribe human motivations and reactions to them."

"Oh, they've been human enough in some of their reactions in the past," Ross stated in a grim voice. "Those boys don't play nice, not at all."

"No, they don't," Ashe said. "But we still do not know what game they are playing. Not really."

"My question," Kosta said, wiping back dark curly hair from his brow, "is, are these Younoprosopoi Younoprosopoi their allies, or enemies?" their allies, or enemies?"

"A good question, one I'd like an answer to myself," Ashe said.

Eveleen smiled. "I like that. 'Younoprosopoi.' 'Younoprosopoi.' Is that Modern Greek? It sounds a little like our present Kallistan Greek." Is that Modern Greek? It sounds a little like our present Kallistan Greek."

Kosta flashed a grin. "Means 'Fur Faces.' "

Ross said, "Since I was until now the only one who'd ever seen one of these guys, and that was during an attack that we decided later was some sort of triple cross involving the Russians, the Baldies, and at least one Fur Face, what they're doing here is anybody's guess."

"Then let's continue to gather facts. Stav, Kosta. What did you find over at the pre-Kameni Island?"

"Evidence of at least six of those devices, all buried very deeply."

"Did you mark them?"

"We have got markers floating over each," Kosta said.

"Good. Then tomorrow we need to find out if they are in the nearer vents."

"More area to cover," Stav said.

"Start today, then. Take all night."

"I'll go with them," Eveleen offered. "I haven't been on a dive for, oh, a whole six months. I hate to get out of practice."

"An excellent idea." Ashe smiled a little.

Then he turned to Ross, who said first, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Ashe shrugged. "I think it's time for some desperate measures. I do not condone undue violence, but perhaps our Younoprosopoi Younoprosopoi friends will not resist our invitation for a little talk." friends will not resist our invitation for a little talk."

Stav looked a little confused.

Eveleen said, "Where is Linnea?"

"I was just looking for her," Ashe said. "Before I spotted you coming down the trail and hiked down to meet you here. Answer: I don't know. She was not at that little room you two rented."

"Invitation?" Stav murmured, still looking confused. "Invitation? Is this an idiom with which I am not familiar?"

"No," Eveleen said, casting him a distracted look. "Linnea must be off investigating something," she said. "I can go check, just in case. Maybe one of those women there saw her."

"A good idea," Ashe said, still studying the volcano under its pall of smoke, as if he could see a small figure toiling up and down the trail. "In case whatever she's on the track of requires backup."

"What is this 'invitation'?" Stav asked Ross.

Ross sent a tight grin Ashe's way and then said to the Greek agent, "We're going to do a little alien-napping."